Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    509/896 (page 45)
    abstract principles. In the first place, the public is apt to take nervous disease in the lump, especially insanity. Time will not suffice to-night to explain in detail what I mean by this ex- pression j but I will adduce one or two examples which will illus- trate its general drift. The father or mother of a family may become insane far on in life as a consequence of senile decay, or may receive accidental injuries to the head producing mental aberration, or may suffer rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain, and become demented as a consequence of the apoplexy. In all these three cases it may be required to send the subjects to an asylum where they may die. This is enough with a large section of the community to suggest the idea that there is insanity in the family. A minute's reflection, however, will show that in such instances there is no real blot in the family history, and that there is no more reason for anticipating nervous instability in their children than in a family in which such an incident has not occurred. This type of case excludes a large section of cases from the consideration whether it is advisable to marry into a family in which insanity has cropped up. Again, the term insanity is a generic one, comprehending a large number of various diseases; there are insanities and insanities, many of which experience tells us are much less liable to be transmitted than others ; so that it is not a mere matter of madness that has to be considered as existing in a family, but which of the many forms comprised in that general term has made its appearance. But even if we admit the existence of nervous disease in a family, are we to say that its members are to be debarred from marriage f I for one say no. There are many other forms of disease which are almost if not quite as trans- missible as affections of the nervous system. I have already instanced cancer, consumption, and gout; and if every man or woman is to be debarred from marriage because his family history is not intact, one department of the Eegistrar-General's returns would seriously suffer. It is quite a different matter if the man or woman has been the subject of such disease j but it has been very rarely my duty, and then under very exceptional circumstances, to advise that proceedings should be stayed where the family